In a system area network (“SAN”), multiple processors compete for services and access to memory locations in order to write data to, or read data from the memory locations. One type of network, well known in the prior art, is Ethernet. In an Ethernet network, connections are established between processors or nodes, but memory regions associated with the nodes and the data contained in them are isolated from direct access. In order for a local host processor to access a remote memory location, it is necessary to invoke the operating system (“OS”) associated with the remote memory location. This is because the OS, and more particularly, the OS kernel, controls memory management. Invocation of the OS kernel to access remote memory is time consuming and may overburden the kernel. Consequently, other functions (e.g., process and task management and disk management functions) controlled by the kernel may be interrupted.